Author name: Kartik Chawla

Ericsson v. Intex, part II – The Perils and Pitfalls of Software Patenting

/ By / Patent

The first part of this post looked at the Ericsson v. Intex judgment as a whole, while this second part is looking at the specific potential influence it can have on the issue of Software Patents in India. We have addressed the issue of software patenting, in India and beyond, on multiple occasions – specifically, here, here, here and here. The Indian position has been quite ambiguous for a very long time – or rather, as Prof Shamnad Basheer puts …

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SpicyIP Tidbit – Facebook Denied Patent for Crawler in India

/ By / Patent

According to the Financial Express, Facebook’s patent application for its Crawler, filed in 2007, has been denied by the Indian Patent Office, as the ‘inventive step’ requirement had not been met. The algorithm was not originally designed by Facebook, but was assigned to Facebook from Truveo Inc., a search engine for internet videos, which had originally filed for the patent. A crawler is an algorithm-based software/automated script which scours all the websites online that it can reach for data – …

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Ericsson v. Intex, Part 1 – SEPs, Injunctions, and gathering clouds for Software Patenting?

/ By / Patent

In the recent judgment by Justice Manmohan Singh of the Delhi High Court in the case of Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson v. Intex, Swedish telecom giant Ericsson was granted an injunction against Intex for any devices that infringed on the eight Standard Essential Patents that are part of Ericsson’s portfolio. The Court also ordered Intex to pay 50% of the royalties from the filing of the suit to Ericsson. We had covered this issue earlier here and here. The Court has …

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Barriers in Access to Medicine: Yet another Culprit – an Apathetic Government

/ By / Drug Regulation, Innovation, Patent

Patents impede access to affordable medications. This is now a well-established proposition, though the rate and extent of such impediment will vary from case to case. However, what of non-patent barriers? Unfortunately, this is a topic that has not received as much attention as patents in the mainstream debates. Below is a sorry story reflecting one of the biggest non patent barriers: namely, government apathy! This story begins with a detailed analysis by Vidya Krishnan in an article on LiveMint, …

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Comments on the GIPC Index 2015, Part II – Misleading Indian IP

/ By / Innovation, Patent

The GIPC Index ranks India second from the last rank, by a margin of ‘.13’ which separates it from Thailand. Due to the inordinate, and entirely unnecessary news value that the Index has despite its fundamental flaws, this fact has garnered quite a lot of note in multiple media outlets. And the reactions seem to be the worst possible – most articles seem to be hailing this as a sign for India needing a stronger IP regime, without even going …

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Comments on the GIPC Index 2015, Part I – Misleading Links

/ By / Copyright, Innovation, Others, Overlaps in IP, Patent

The relationship between intellectual property and innovation is complex and multifaceted, and in some cases, rather tenuous, as Shamnad Sir discusses in his excellent article here. The GIPC Index 2015, in one of the very few things it gets right, partially acknowledges this relationship – and yet, in the very same sentence, ignores the complexity of the debate. The GIPC Index this year leaves no doubt that it is voicing the perspective of industry and the corporate that it cares …

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Worrying Developments in Indo-US IP negotiations – Data Exclusivity and Patent Linkages

/ By / Data Exclusivity, Patent

In a deeply worrying development, Senior Advocate and former UN Special Rapporteur Anand Grover reports in an email alert that “From inside sources it appears that PM Modi is very keen to assure the US President Barack Obama and US multinational companies (MNCs) that India will agree to the changes proposed by them. Inside sources also reveal that two issues likely to be worked upon are Data Exclusivity[1] and Patent Linkage[2].” We have covered the recent developments in the Indo-US …

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